We’ve now been in Australia for a week and a half, a week of which we’ve been on our road trip and so far we have clocked up around 1800 kilometers. We are now in Emu Park, just north of the tropic of Capricorn.
I’m not really sure what exactly I was thinking Australia would be like, but I certainly never thought for a second how quickly I would fall in love with the place. Australia had never been somewhere I’d ever thought I’d travel to, it’s so far away from home. I also had places on my list I’d much rather see beforehand. When Emma and I first thought about travelling we both agreed on America and Canada. It was only later that Australia came on the agenda and I was a little unsure at first. Even as late February this year I was still a little bit unsure, funds being the biggest issue.
But then we decided, we might as well. When will we ever have 7 weeks spare to do anything like this again? All I know now is, I’m so glad we decided to go ahead
Sydney is very similar to Vancouver. The same architecture. The same layout. The Opera House and Canada Place even have a striking resemblance. But it’s a little bit more laid back. Drivers aren’t as aggressive with each other and people are friendlier. Maybe it’s just because I’m not working over here so I get to see the place as a tourist rather than a resident.
We only had a brief stop in Sydney. We’ll be back for two weeks at the end of our trip, but in the meantime we had a 5 week road trip ahead of ourselves. It allowed us to see a huge portion of the country, and Emma’s sister who we are staying with a chance to have her baby and get settled in before the scruffy travellers arrive back on her doorstep.
We hired a great big green camper van which we’ve nicknamed Shiela. She’s a bit bigger than anything we’ve ever driven before. She’s also got to last us a bit longer than we’ve ever driven before, 10,000km in total, more when you add all the little detours we take. She looks like she’s been through a lot so will hopefully be used to the gruelling drive. Surprisingly she’s very comfortable to sleep in. In the week we’ve been on the road I have slept like a baby pretty much every night.
Like a true Australian lady, Shiela liks a drink. She’s a little bit heavy on fuel. Australian’s work in kilometers and litres, but I’ve done the conversion and she does about 22 miles per gallon. Across America we were getting 36 miles per gallon. Fuel was also dirt cheap in America compared to Australia. $1.40 per litre seems to be the average at the moment, but that could hit $2 in the outback.
There’s a huge difference between what we did in America and what we are doing here. America was a luxury holiday in comparison to this. Yes we did camping in America, but we also did hotels, lots of hotels, including 4 star in places. Here we’re trying to do this as cheap as possible. A combination of hostels and campsites. Our average accommodation cost at the moment is about $10 a night.
We’ve so far spent our time driving up the coast, stopping in quaint little surfer towns. It’s as close to a hippy lifestyle as we will ever get. Lots of beaches, lot’s of kangaroo’s and koala’s, lots of sunshine (even in winter) and the occasional beer thrown in for good measure. Better not get too used to this, the UK and working for a living is only 6 weeks away.
I’m writing blog posts as we go along, however due to lack of connectivity in places there is a delay in uploading them. And as for photos, that’s a real struggle. Best place to check for updates is my BlipFoto page.
